Earlier today at MTA committee hearings, it was revealed that subway delays for March 2011 where up 10% as compared to the same period last year. NY1 had more in this brief report:

Metropolitan Transit Authority officials said Monday that delays have gotten worse on nearly all subways in the past year.

The numbered lines were hit hardest. Late trains were up more than 10 percent in March compared to the same time last year.

MTA officials said track and signal work are the primary contributors to the increase. Some board members called the figures unacceptable.

“That service continues to be pretty bad,” said Charles Moerdler, an MTA board member. “It ain’t getting any better.”

“We’re still bound by the principle that evenness of service is by far the most important thing rather than just late, although we’d like to do both,” said Tom Prendergast, president of MTA NYC Transit. “But evenness of service is more important because that way you’re having less impact on customers.”

Prendergast pointed out that the numbers don’t say how late trains are. For example, a train that’s five seconds late was counted the same as one that’s five minutes late. He said the numbers need to be weighted to put them in perspective.

For starters this news comes as no surprise as the delays have been pretty evident across the system. With all of the signal & track issues seeming to plague the system in all 4 boroughs, it is to be expected that delays would be up. As far as statistics go, new metrics need to be put in place as a train that is 5 seconds late should never be counted the same as being 5 minutes late. Can we all say asinine!